


Don’t support the Sokovian Accords

by PerplexinglyParadoxialPerson



Series: The stories of the Captain America needs a hug hashtag [8]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Anti-Sokovia Accords, Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Civil War Team Captain America, Civil War Team Iron Man, Gen, Podfic Welcome, Sokovia Accords, The Sokovian Accords, Transformative Works Welcome, World Security Council - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23728879
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PerplexinglyParadoxialPerson/pseuds/PerplexinglyParadoxialPerson
Summary: The Facility really inspired me, because the author did their best to provide a fair and balanced look at Civil War, which I tried to do with the Accords. (No Stony in this fic though!)
Series: The stories of the Captain America needs a hug hashtag [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1466758
Comments: 102
Kudos: 131





	1. The call:Steve

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Facility](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21099752) by [WilmaKins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WilmaKins/pseuds/WilmaKins). 



> The Facility really inspired me, because the author did their best to provide a fair and balanced look at Civil War, which I tried to do with the Accords. (No Stony in this fic though!)

Sara saw that the official Avengers twitter account had just posted a new video, titled The Sokovian Accords. She clicked on it, curious as to what the Avengers opinion on it would be. 

The video opened with Steve, sitting on a chair in front of a table. The camera was steady, unlike the last video. This one was obviously planned. 

“Hey guys,” Steve said to the camera. “I made this video to give everyone my opinions on the Sokovian Accords, please watch to the end, I have a lot of important points. 

First of all, I have to say that the Accords are a fantastic idea in theory. I have seen many posts on many different social media sites that explain this much better than I can, but I will give you an overview. The Avengers are an incredible idea, a group of powerful people that can fight the things no one else can, but as we see new Avengers coming to the team, the current Avengers will eventually leave the team, either by retirement or death. In that case, we have to be cautious about who joins, make sure that this group of superheroes doesn’t become a group of supervillains, and with the fact that most Avengers will eventually leave, we need ways of keeping enhanced people that have bad intentions from ever joining the team. We also need ways to keep supervillains from escaping prisons that normal people could never escape, laws about what kind of punishments are necessary for things like trying to take over the world. 

However, the Sokovian Accords are not the way to do that. I have seen many people supporting the Accords, using the same arguments that I just said, the unsaid assumptions about them, and being glad that we will have the support of them in the future. The actual written part of it though is much different. 

Tomorrow is the day that the Avengers have been given to sign the Accords, to say that we will follow them and that we agree with them. We got the final version of the Accords two days ago. We had two days to read this.” 

He pulled a large pile of papers into the view of the camera. “I am very glad that I can read faster than normal people, and have an enhanced memory, so I can remember every legal term that was used. If not for that, quite a few things would have gotten past others. Many Avengers wanted the Accords, thought that the idea was a good idea with many advantages. However, when I told them the extent of the Accords, not one of the Avengers have continued in their decisions. Not one of the Avengers will be signing the Accords, and if that means that we become fugitives, then we become fugitives. 

Once this video is posted, I will be posting the text of the Accords in full, so that you can all make the decision for yourself, but I will be reading out the rules that have the most human rights violations in them. A fair amount of the rules in the Accords are decent, but there are some sprinkled in there that are truly awful. 

For one, every enhanced person must register, whether they became enhanced by accident, on purpose, or were born with their enhancements. 

To register, they must be evaluated by the World Security Council for a power analysis so they can be given a threat level, which will be on the register for anyone in the organization to see. Then they must give them their legal name, fingerprints, and a DNA sample. The Accords are less clear about this next bit, but that only leaves more wiggle room for unjust behaviour. Some of the people registered will be given a tracking bracelet that must be worn at all times. It is based on their threat level, of which we have no clue what it’s based on. 

This must seem horrible beyond imagining for most of you, but I have seen this before. I may not have seen the beginning of it, but I saw the results of it. I saw the results of the Holocaust myself, I saw a concentration camp in full operation. 

This is how it starts, a group of people are different in some way, and others take it as a threat. 

Then fear is spread, saying that these people are dangerous, that they will steal your well being and comfort, that there is no way to live in peace with them, that every single one of them are a certain way. 

Then those people are exposed, separated from everyone else, shown as beasts to be kept restrained. Those that can “pass” as the non-discriminated group are seen as better than those that can’t, but once it is revealed that they aren’t what they seem, are treated as suspicious, as taking advantage of the system, and people ask “what else are they hiding?” 

Then there are laws written up, ones that say that these people are different under the law, that they need to be restricted, that they deserve less than others, that they are less than human. 

The public does half the work for them, assuming that the leaders are right, not researching it for themselves, spreading the fear and fanning the flames, begging for laws against it, that their leaders do something about these abominations. 

Does this sound familiar? It should. I took this from my knowledge of the Holocaust, my knowledge of many issues over many years. 

However, the worst part of the Accords is not this, it is one specific section of the Accords that says, with no exaggeration, but slightly reworded for clarity, in section thirty-seven A, that any enhanced persons who breaks the law, or preforms any unauthorized vigilantism can be subject to detainment indefinitely with no trial. 

It places no restrictions on what kind of vigilantism counts, or what laws you need to break to be subject to that consequence. If there is no restrictions on what laws you need to break, or what kind of vigilantism counts, then any vigilantism, or any laws broken can make you subject to indefinite detainment without a trial. 

That means if you do something as small as stop a mugging, or shoplift something small, then you can be subject to the same consequence that I’ve been saying over and over. There isn’t even a clause about if they don’t know about their powers, if the first time they’ve displayed their powers is also when they were being a vigilante, or breaking a law, the consequence is the same. 

And this isn’t even mentioning the fact that there is no trial to determine whether they are actually guilty or not. The trials we do have are very flawed, discriminatory, and unfair in many circumstances. I will be the first to say that it is flawed, but it is so much better than having no trial at all, to be assumed to be guilty no matter what evidence is found. 

There’s also the fact that the imprisonment is indefinite, as long as that person lives with no parole. Depending on the circumstances around it, if someone murders someone in the United States, that person usually gets from ten years to a life sentence. In the United States, a life sentence is technically a literal life sentence, but usually after about fifteen to twenty years you get the chance for parole. That means, the crime of having an enhancement and breaking a law, can get you a worse sentence than killing a person. 

I have presented the worst case scenario, but that is the worst case scenario within the parameters of the Accords. At the very least, that scenario would be perfectly legal. This is a disgusting misuse of the power that the World Security Council has, and it has occurred in part because of misinformation. Again, I will be posting the full text of the Accords once this video has been posted, so you can look up every piece of information in this video for yourselves. 

Another reason why the Accords have so much power is fear. Knowing that someone out there has so much more power than you can be terrifying, and that is completely logical, and we do need Accords of some kind, and I do say that without a doubt, but as the Accords are now, they are stomping human rights into the ground. They need to be changed drastically before they can be put into action. 

For those of you who say that it is uncharacteristic of the World Security Council, consider this. Alexander Pierce, the leader of Hydra, hid in the Council for years without attracting any suspicion, and presented Project Insight, which was so close to being a reality. 

There is also the much less well known fact that, during the battle of Manhattan, it was the World Security Council’s decision to launch a nuclear bomb at Manhattan, which possibly could have stopped the aliens from coming through, but if it wasn’t for Iron Mans heroics and his willingness to sacrifice himself, all seven million people that lived on the island, and many people who lived nearby, would have died instantly. And that’s not even counting the people who would die later of radiation sickness. 

They did things like not give us the full text of the Accords until three days before we were to sign it, say one thing about the Accords, and put another thing in the actual Accords. They did this so we could be complicit in our own discrimination and destruction. 

I do not tell you these things to scare you, but to inform you. The best way that I know of to stop fear and misinformation in their tracks is love and knowledge, making all of the information for both sides available to everyone so you can make the decision for yourself, to disprove all the commonly said lies. 

I beg of you all to play your part as a human being, tell everyone you can about this, protest, sign petitions, spread the truth about the Accords. Make sure that we pressure these people into changing the Accords. 

The role of the government, of any organization that rules in any way is to serve the people, to put the needs and rights of the people as their first priority. If they aren’t serving the people then they should not be in charge. 

So please, join me and the rest of the Avengers in protesting this. I look forwards to seeing the kind of change that we can preform together, like what happened with Women’s liberation, desegregation, and the sexuality and gender revolutions. As a group, and hopefully, as a human race, we can do this. I hope to see your support in this, every person counts.” 

The video ended, and Sara sat back, stunned by the deepness of the awful things about the Accords. She opened tumblr, ready to write a post.


	2. The answer:Tony

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so all of you that follow this series know, this is not a new chapter! I am moving my most recently posted side story to this as a second chapter, and deleting the first one so I don’t have the same thing posted twice. 
> 
> It came to my attention through the comments on the second story that most of the people that read it didn’t read the previous story, and that is partially why I got so many comments on it not actually being team Iron Man. It was based so heavily on the previous one, that people who hadn’t read the previous one believed that it wasn’t team Iron Man, partially because I was more focused on the similarities to Tony stopping weapons development, than showing that the Accords were good. 
> 
> I assumed that people would have read the previous one first, but many hadn’t, and those of you who had read the second one and thought it was team Iron Man had likely read the first one, which influenced your perception of the second one. 
> 
> To solve that problem, I decided to put the two together, to save future readers the confusion.

Eliska was going through her Twitter feed, which was crowded with posts from almost everyone they were following, all commenting on the video that Steve had released. Then, she saw that the official Avengers Twitter had posted something else, titled “the Accords:why I originally supported them.” She clicked on the video, curious about who had posted this.

The scene opened with Tony, sitting at a table. “Hey everyone,” he said with a smirk. “I’m making this video to talk about the Accords as you can tell. I’m very jealous of Steve’s ability to break the internet, so I decided to take a stab at it. No one is allowed to usurp me as the King of the Internet!

But aside from that, I have a few serious things to talk about. After the video that Steve posted, a lot of the people that changed their opinion on the Accords after watching it have been insulted. Seen as lesser than the people who didn’t support the Accords from the beginning, and insulted by the people who continue to support the Accords as well. I’ve also seen posts that say that Steve has been speaking for us, and that the Avengers don’t actually want the Accords to be changed, and that we were possibly intimidated into wanting to change the Accords.

I’m here to set the record straight, and I have been given permission to speak for the Avengers and other superheroes that originally supported the Accords before Steve told us the full extent of them.”

Then the screen changed, showing the Black Widow. She said, “I give my full permission for Tony to speak on my behalf on the topic of the Accords.”

Then it changed to Vision, who also said, “I give my full permission for Tony to speak on my behalf on the topic of the Accords.”

Iron Patriot, Spider-Man, and Black Panther also gave their permission, and the screen went back to Tony.

“I supported the Accords at first because, in theory, they are a great idea. I’d seen what unchecked heroism could do, like what I did in making Ultron, what Hydra did in terms of trying to make super soldiers, and many other things. I wanted some guidelines, so that nothing like that would happen again, so that whoever did things like that would be punished.

I assumed that the World Security Council would have our best interests at heart, but I must have forgotten that they sent a nuclear bomb towards New York during the battle of Manhattan. It must have been the whole going to space thing, remember kids, going to space without a spacesuit is dangerous!

Either way, I heard through the grapevine that the Accords would be happening, so I supported them as much as I could. The thing is, I didn’t read them. I, and a lot of others made assumptions about what was on them, and it was such a massive stack of paper, and we only had a few days to read it before we were meant to sign it. I thought that maybe we could revise them after we signed them, just in case there was something we didn’t want in there.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t a mechanism to change them. Most governments have a process that they have to go through to change or add a law, but the Accords made sure that, if we signed them, there would be no way for us to have a say of any kind.

Pepper assures me that it is the entire point of having a flock of highly payed contract lawyers for Stark Industries. They can deal with all the legal stuff, so we don’t sign what we don’t agree with.

When I showed everyone the Accords, the first thing Steve did was to sit down and read them. Barnes helped him, and with their powers combined, and a legal dictionary, we found out the truth of the Accords. Thank god for super reading speed and memory, am I right? I’m definitely right.

Anyway, when I was told by them the full extent of the Accords, I was horrified. The fact that I had supported such an awful document, with such awful and flagrant human rights abuses, was horrifying.

It was painful, to know that I had done so much wrong, but I would never wish that it had never happened. Like when I figured out that Stark weaponry was being used by terrorists after being kidnapped, it truly opened my eyes. It was painful, and a massive blow to my pride, to accept that I had been so wrong, but it was a necessary step to help me change my ways. Like how I turned Stark Industries to stop making weapons, I now do not support the version of the Accords currently waiting to be signed. And as Steve said, if it makes us all fugitives, then we become fugitives.

I personally think that the World Security Council just wanted a superhero team to do whatever they wanted, and could never oppose them, like what Hydra did to Barnes. Unfortunately, the draw of having someone that is so powerful under your control is a big temptation, and there will probably be attempts like this in the future. The thing is, we don’t have the same goals as a lot of the people in charge, we want peace, for everyone to have their rights intact. I personally stopped making weapons that powerful people from all over the world wanted, and when you don’t do the things that people in power want you to do, they try to silence you, like they tried with the Accords.

I am very lucky to have escaped the possible consequences that signing the Accords would have brought upon me, and I hope that everyone will make the decision to not support them. It isn’t too late to change your mind about them, it is never too late to choose love and kindness instead of hate. All you have to do is start now, don’t promise to try harder next week or make it a new year’s resolution, start choosing love now.

And if you need the info, I will also be providing a link to the full text of the Accords. We may need rules and accords, but the Sokovian Accords is not the way to do it. Tony Stark signing off,” he said with a sloppy salute, and the video ended.

Eliska scrolled down absently, intrigued by Tony’s impassioned speech, and when her screen refreshed, like the old computer did at random times, she saw a new post. It was an article, and the title was, “the World Security Council makes an announcement:they will be working with the Avengers to revise the Accords.” It was so soon after Tony’s video was posted that there was no way that it was a coincidence. She was so relieved that her favorite superheroes would be safe from the awfulness of the Accords.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, all of the parts of the Accords that are mentioned in this story are actually in the Accords. I got them from the wiki, which got them from canon scenes in the Marvel universe.
> 
> I fully believe that both Steve and Tony had valid reasons for their choices, but I also believe that if Tony had actually read the Accords, I highly doubt that he ever would have signed them. Steve is the only person who has been seen reading them! If he had just asked Tony to read them, or if Tony had considered that maybe Steve had a reason for refusing to sign them, or maybe if they hadn’t just started fighting the moment they disagreed! I would bet you anything that Stark Industries have a whole herd of fantastic contract lawyers that Tony could have made use of. If Steve and Tony had just talked things out, I’d bet you anything that at least half of Civil War could have been avoided! I’m definitely not the tiniest bit salty about this, not at all...🙄 *sarcasm*
> 
> Edit:some people have asked why I put the tag for team Iron Man on this story. It is because they do need some kind of Accords, aka Tony’s side. The thing I am not supporting is this version of the Accords. There will be a much revised version of the Accords in this universe, although it probably won’t be seen directly. Sorry for not clarifying!


End file.
